The ‘Sheila’ paragraph of Keith Richards’ 564-page memoir, Life, has delighted and mystified Australian Stones fans. It reads as follows:

Another was in Melbourne, Australia. She had a baby. Sweet, shy, unassuming, she was on the scuppers; the old man had left her with the kid. She could get me pure cocaine, pharmaceutical. And she kept coming to the hotel to deliver, so I went, hey, why don’t I just move in? … And it felt great, man. I can do this, just a little semidetached. I’d take care of the baby; she went to work. I was husband for the week. Changed the baby’s diapers. There’s somebody in a suburb in Melbourne who doesn’t even know I wiped his ass.

– Keith Richards, Life

Who was she? Is she still alive? Could the owner of the wiped ass be found? Who would look at the 1973 Keith Richards and think ‘babysitter’?

I set out to find her. The extended piece appears in this wonderful coffee table sized book containing essays from some of Australia’s best writers and musicians. Contributors include M.J. Hyland, Fiona McGregor, Clinton Walker, Jeff Jenkins, Toby Creswell, Stephen Cummings, Neil Murray, Malcolm Knox, Sophia Brous and Mick Harvey, the late David McComb. The Clinton Walker piece on Barry Gibb just blew me away.

A shorter version will be extracted in Good Weekend.

It’s definitely worth buying the book.